


there are apologies well hidden in the lies (but they exist)

by chshrkitten



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Also surprisingly canon compliant for an ERC story, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Loving Marriage, One Shot, surprisingly bittersweet for a story where all the characters do is play board games and cuddle, the angst is minimal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 21:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15179441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chshrkitten/pseuds/chshrkitten
Summary: On the one year anniversary of Erik’s burial, Christine and Raoul talk about the man neither of them is sure they didn’t love.





	there are apologies well hidden in the lies (but they exist)

When Christine woke, her husband’s side of the bed was already cold.

This in and of itself was not unusual. Raoul de Chagny—or rather, Raoul Nilsson, even two years after choosing that new name Christine sometimes forgot—had always been an early riser. And yes, when she listened, she could hear the familiar sound of him clattering pans and silverware in the kitchen. But something still seemed off. It took her a second to place what it was: Raoul’s cheerful humming, normally omnipresent in the morning, was absent.

Christine frowned, and rolled over, blinking up at the ceiling for a minute. Then, she sighed. Christine slipped out of bed, and shrugged on a shawl over her nightdress. It was cold in Sweden this time of year. The pine floorboards were rough-edged, but they felt soft under her quiet feet as she padded down the hallway. 

Christine reached the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe to watch her husband at work. It did not reassure her the way she had hoped it would. His normal, easy movement was restrained, his shoulders hunched around a tension that ran almost visibly through his neck. His knife moved very carefully over the onion he was chopping, as though he wasn’t certain of his own motions.

Seeing him like this wasn’t new to Christine, but it had been three months since the last morning he woke up in this state. She had thought maybe his time of nightmares was over. “Raoul.” His hands stilled. “Did you have a— a dream?”

He turned, and blinked at her for a moment, before realizing what she meant. “Oh. No, I didn’t. I slept fine, actually.”

“Then what is it?”

He set the knife down on the cutting board. “It’s the anniversary today, Christine.” 

Christine shook her head. “But we were married in the— oh.” She broke off. “Oh. I’d forgotten.”

“Then I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”

“No, I…” she grasped for the words. “I would have remembered later today anyway. It’s better, I think, knowing that we both remember what it means.”

One year ago to the day, Erik had been buried. 

***

Over breakfast, he asked her. “Do you think we should do anything special today? Even with everything that happened in the end, it feels wrong not to mark the occasion somehow.”

“Well, we can’t exactly go put flowers on his grave.” Christine pointed out practically. 

“Yes, Paris would be rather far for a day trip.” Raoul speared a piece of egg with his fork. “But I really think we should do something.”

Christine thought for a second. “Let’s stay home together, then. I’m not scheduled to give any more voice lessons till Tuesday, and the surveyor’s office can go without you for one day. I’ll run into town after we finish eating, and tell them you’re sick. We can just…” she shrugged. “Stay home. Talk about him, or not.”

“I’d like that.”

***

They ended up playing an unusually quiet game of draughts that morning. While Raoul chose his second move, Christine took a moment to consider the silence, and found that it didn’t worry her. It felt more contemplative than mournful. 

After about ten minutes of no sound but the click of game pieces, Raoul spoke. “Christine, may I ask you something?”

“Of course, dear. What is it?”

“You don’t have to answer this, if you don’t want to.”

“Alright,” she asked more warily, “What is it, Raoul?”

“I want to know if you loved him.”

“You mean Erik.” It wasn’t a question. She sighed, flicking at a game piece with her finger. “I don’t know. I cared about him anyway.”

Raoul nodded, and made his next move. Christine responded, captured two of his pieces, and wondered what her husband was thinking. She didn’t ask. 

“I know he helped you a lot when you first came to Paris.” Raoul said at last, three moves later. “With your voice, and generally.”

“He did. It’s hard to think on now, but…” she shrugged. “Yes.”

“I’m grateful to him for that.” Raoul said. “I was out in the navy then, and even though I should have, I didn’t realize from your letters that you were so…”

“Lonely?” Christine shrugged. “Everyone’s lonely sometimes, that’s hardly your fault.”

They both knew that in her case it had been a deeper kind of loneliness, but neither of them said so. There was no point in bringing all that up again, after all. Not when she was doing so much better now.

***

Later that afternoon, Christine was the one to break the silence. They were sitting by the window, watching the birds outside. Raoul was drawing his fingers absentmindedly through Christine’s hair, working out the tangles she never seemed to notice herself. 

“You know, Erik used to be so sweet, before everything happened. Do you remember that?”

Raoul hummed an agreement. “He always made a point of opening the door for me, whenever I came to see him in box five. At first I thought he was just doing it to needle me, you know, make me feel like a girl…” he snuck a glance at Christine’s arched eyebrow, and laughed sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. But that is what I thought, at first. We were love rivals, after a fashion.”

Christine waited. She could tell he wasn’t done speaking. 

“The thing is though, I don’t think he ever meant it that way. He was just trying to be a gentleman, as best he knew how. I wish, I don’t know, just that we hadn’t wasted so much time pretending—“ he waved his free hand. “You know. Pretending.”

“I do.” She said quietly. “Why did he keep inviting you to sit with him during my performances, anyway?”

“He said it was to make sure I wasn’t “leering at dancing girls, when you already have a much better fiancée than you will ever begin to deserve.’”

Christine laughed. “Were you leering at dancing girls?”

Raoul blinked, then laughed with her. “No, darling. These eyes are only for you.”

“Not only. Not then.” The words slipped out before she could debate their wisdom.

“Maybe not then.” He said, very low. 

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair for me to say, not when I felt so much the same. I’m sorry.”

Raoul only carded his fingers again through her hair, and told her that it all seemed like so very long ago now. And then he told her he loved her, and she said the same, and for a moment Christine felt guilty about how easy this was. So much easier than anything could have been with Erik. 

But she didn’t let herself think about that for too long. Christine Nilsson had enough practice to know it wasn’t safe to let guilt sit with her for too long. 

 

***

It was late in the evening before anyone brought up their shared ghost again. They were out on the small porch behind the house, the porch they had built together that summer. The stars were already out. 

Raoul wrapped his arms around Christine’s waist, and she felt his breath against her shoulder, warming her through her thin shirt just enough to make her realize how cold she was. 

“Do you miss him terribly, Christine?” 

“Do you?” She asked quietly.

Ever more naturally honest than her, ever more open, he hummed an affirmative. “But you know, it’s only been a year. Perhaps, with time…” he trailed off, pressing his warm cheek against her cold one. She leaned into the touch, and they watched the moon rise in the sky.

“Raoul, do you ever hate me for it, even a little?”

“Of course not, darling.” He answered immediately.

“You didn’t even ask what ‘it’ is.”

“I could never hate you. But what is it? What could you think I would hate you for?”

“Missing him. When he hurt you so much.”

“You could ask the same thing of me.”

A cool breeze blew past them, lifting Christine’s heavy locks of hair out of her face. Her husband stood so close that she could almost hear his heartbeat. She wouldn’t want him to ever be any farther away. “I don’t want you to hate him, Raoul. I’m so tired of it all, but I never could make myself hate him.”

“Neither can I. I did for a while, you know, when we first left France.”

”I almost did too.” Christine admitted. 

“I suppose I can’t say he didn’t mean to hurt us, can I?” Raoul asked.

“We both know he did.” The words hung, untempered, in the air. 

“He was a brilliant man, though, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.” Christine agreed. “He was kind, too, at least in a way. He always knew just the thing to say when I was upset.”

They stood there thinking about him for a long time. Eventually though, Raoul took Christine by the hand, and led her gently back to their warm bed.

**Author's Note:**

> I. The title is a line from “Genuinely Bad,” by Pretty Balanced, and at least one piece of dialogue is directly inspired by that song too. It’s a great song, and it suits ERC perfectly. I recommend it.
> 
> II. I chose the last name “Nilsson” for the couple after Christina Nilsson, the opera star that Leroux is believed to have based Christine’s character on.
> 
> III. I know most of the exposition in this was vague, in case it wasn’t clear: I wrote this as an experiment with a ‘verse where Christine and Raoul each had nebulous but intense relationships with Erik, so that the dynamic between the three of them kind of wavered between the classic love triangle and a romantic triad. The canon plot events largely proceeded the same way they did in Leroux, though.


End file.
